In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of peach tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Neptune V’.
The present variety was hybridized by me in 2000 as a first generation cross using ‘Grand Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,960) nectarine as the selected seed parent and ‘Neptune I’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,816) peach as the selected pollen parent. The fruit of this cross was gathered that summer, and the seeds were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse. Upon reaching dormancy the seedlings were transplanted as a group to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the fruit evaluation season of 2004 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent ‘Grand Pearl’ nectarine by producing fruit that is mostly red in skin color and sweet and sub-acidic in taste, but is quite distinguished therefrom by being a peach instead of a nectarine, and by producing fruit that is yellow flesh instead of white, that is freestone instead of clingstone, and that matures about twenty-five days earlier.
The present variety is more similar to its pollen parent, ‘Neptune I’ (U.S. Plant patent application Ser. No. 11/453,792) peach by producing peaches that are very oblate in shape, firm, freestone in type, and mostly red in skin color, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is sweeter in flavor, that is yellow instead of white in flesh color, and that matures about twenty-five days earlier.